Just a Few Miles Down the Road
by Wild Force Ranger
Summary: Abby was happy here, settling back in as though nothing had happened. As though Danny wasn't still MIA, as though Sarah hadn't died trying to save them.    Abby had forgotten them.    Connor would never forget.
1. Chapter 1

Just a Few Miles Down the Road

Connor couldn't believe it had taken him so long to think of it.

Five weeks back from the Cretaceous, and they'd been busy. Lester had gotten them around the 'military only' rule, but Matt wanted Connor and Abby to have a certain amount of training, enough to keep them alive if necessary. Both had been working, bare-handed and with weapons, to meet his admittedly lax standards. Jess had walked Connor through the changes to his system and he'd promptly suggested three more upgrades and countless other ideas. Lester had gotten their paperwork back in order – even without being declared dead, vanishing for a year had made a mess of their private lives. Abby had reunited with Jack, so happy to see him that it took a good twenty minutes before he started irritating her.

But it still felt wrong. It still wasn't home.

Connor was working late one evening, implementing one of the upgrades he'd discussed with Jess. He was all but alone; one soldier on guard at the door, one passing through on rounds every few minutes. Lester was gone. Abby and Jess had gone. Matt – actually, Connor had no idea where Matt was. They hadn't talked, apart from the necessary, though he seemed pleasant enough.

Connor's grip slipped and he brushed a wire. Gasping at the mild shock, he threw himself backwards without thinking.

"Alright, Connor?" the guard called, starting towards him.

"Yep! Fine. No problem." He scrambled to his feet, shaking out his hand. "I need coffee. Don't let anyone touch that, alright?"

There was a wall just inside the door of the rec room. Everyone passed it every day. And somehow, it had become a shrine to the people who weren't there anymore. No one knew who'd started it - or, they weren't talking, whichever - but Lester had made no comment, and Burton never came in here, so it had stayed.

Connor, as he always did, brushed his fingers over certain pictures as he passed. Stephen, in Cutter's office, laughing at something off-screen. Cutter, fiddling with the Anomaly Matrix. Ryan; they'd used his official ID photo, since they didn't have another. Danny, talking to Becker. Sarah, smiling and chatting with –

Connor's breath caught in his throat and he whipped around, pulling the photo from the wall. Sarah was leaning on her worktable, talking with Jenny.

_Jenny_.

Connor took just long enough to tidy away his tools and make sure that the ADD was still working. "Turning in?" the guard asked as he left.

"Yeah, I'm tired. Can't see straight. I'll sort it in the morning. Night."

"Night."

Abby was asleep. Connor touched her arm lightly; it would wake her, he knew. Neither of them were sleeping very well since the Cretaceous.

"Mphm...Connor?" She pushed up onto her elbows, staring at him. "What is it?"

Connor held out the photo, settling beside her. Abby took it, fingers brushing gently over Sarah's face.

"What about it?" she asked after a minute. "I've seen it."

"Jenny."

"Jenny," Abby repeated. "Connor? I need you to explain exactly what you're thinking, ok? And use small words, it's twenty past two in the morning."

Connor took the photo back, staring at it. "Cutter said that Jenny was Claudia. That the world changed, just a little, when he went to the Permian. They changed something and it made Claudia turn into Jenny."

"I remember," Abby agreed, still not following.

He looked up, meeting her gaze. "We were in the Cretaceous for a year, Abby. Eating fish, and little dinos, building our home, moving things. What's the knock-on effect of that?"

She blinked. "You think something changed?"

"Lester – our Lester, the Lester we left behind – he would never have made the ARC military-only. He didn't even like Ryan, to start with. It was always civilians, always. Becker wouldn't have gone along with it. Matt – maybe he'd have come to us, or maybe he'd have gone climb more mountains, I don't know. But Abby, this place, it isn't right. It isn't our home."

Abby sat upright, pulling her legs in to sit cross-legged. "Connor..."

"We can do something about it. We need to get back, and then...I dunno, we'll figure something out, but...we can't stay here, Abby. This isn't home. It's _not_."

"It's not home," she agreed softly. "But it's what we have. Connor, we can't just go messing around with the Anomalies. That's what Helen Cutter did, and she went insane and tried to wipe out humanity. Remember?"

"I'm not gonna wipe anyone out," Connor protested.

"You don't know that. If Cutter had gone back, and changed things back, Jenny would have been gone. Our friend, Jenny, gone."

"It isn't...it's not the same, Abs."

Abby glanced at the clock again. "I can't talk about this now, Connor, I can't even keep my eyes open. Come and lie down with me and we'll worry about it tomorrow, yeah?"

"You don't believe me."

"I agree it's possible. That's all you're getting tonight. Come and lie down. Please?"

He gave in, lying down and wrapping his arms around her, listening as her breathing evened out into sleep.

She didn't believe him. Didn't think it possible. Abby was happy here, settling back in as though nothing had happened. As though Danny wasn't still MIA, as though Sarah hadn't died trying to save them.

Abby had forgotten them.

Connor would never forget.

He didn't let on, of course. Connor was smarter than that. The next morning, while Jess was getting ready, he quietly went through the plan again with Abby and allowed her to talk him out of it. It wasn't hard; she kept harking on how he didn't know anything, he couldn't know how to change things to get the results he wanted.

He didn't know. That much was true. But Connor had never met a subject he couldn't learn about, and he wasn't going to start now.

It took a long time. Weeks. Connor let Abby think he'd forgotten it – tiredness-induced rambling – and pretended not to notice how she murmured with the rest of the team, and the curious looks he was getting. Someone was always around, now, when he stayed to work late, and for some reason they never had anything better to do than sit somewhere near him – but not too close, because he spread his tools widely around him – and chat about absolutely useless stuff.

He kept the act up. He talked movies and music with Jess, discussed plants with Matt, pretended Becker's attempts at small talk weren't so laughable. He was nice enough, Becker, but they didn't really have anything in common, so they usually ended up reminiscing or giving out about Matt. Lester never tried to chat, of course, just watched from his office before ordering him home. Those nights were the best, because Lester never came close enough to see what he was actually doing.

Connor wasn't stupid, of course. He kept his research to do during the day, usually just after an alert. The others were busy with their own reports, then, and they rarely bothered him. Plenty of time for his own work.

It wasn't until he started going through Sarah's old reports that he made his break-through. She'd never finished translating Helen Cutter's notebook, but she had scanned it onto her hard drive as a back up. No one had touched her files since, and that had been only a few weeks before her death; as far as Connor could tell, no one knew the digital copy was there.

He transferred it to his own computer, locked it under twelve different levels of security, and erased it from Sarah's. Now no one would ever know about it.

It still wasn't easy, of course. Helen was a lot of things, including both intelligent and paranoid. The notebook was written in a dozen different ciphers, switching randomly from one to the next, and there were notes scribbled all over the main entries. Still, Connor had time, and he worked patiently at it.

It was getting harder to keep up appearances with the team. He heard them talking, sometimes, about Burton and the sudden influence he seemed to have. It was news to Connor, who hadn't even realised Burton was wooing him, but it was useful. Burton would never admit that Connor _wasn't_ working for him, so 'staying to work on a project Philip asked me to do' became his new excuse. No one expected anything he did for Burton to be comprehensible, so once he'd copied Helen's work into his own handwriting he could work on it right out in the open without fear of being caught.

When he finally cracked it he left it for a week before coming back to check his work. He didn't want to risk making a mistake at this point. He was only going to get one shot at this.

He'd been requesting bits of tech from Jess on and off for a while. More requests had gone to Burton, and he'd sourced the rest of what he needed himself. No one here would be able to figure out what he was doing.

When he was ready, he waited patiently for an alert. It was an easy one, luckily, no incursion and the Anomaly closed up within an hour. He helped the others pack up and then asked Abby if she'd mind driving back with Matt. "I want to run some scans," he explained. "I want to add another field to the database, but I need to check it out first."

"I'll wait with you," Becker offered.

"You'll be bored," Connor warned him. "It's not going to take long, and I'll keep me box on. I won't be far behind you." He grinned at Abby. "Pick a movie. I'll be home to watch it."

"You're sure?" Becker asked, already edging towards the truck.

"Go on. I'll be an hour, tops."

"Alright," Matt agreed. "Check in when you're done, yeah?"

"Promise. Go on." He bent over his laptop, typing until they drove away.

Then he dropped his black box, ripped the GPS out of the car, and headed for the stadium.

The Anomaly here continued to open sporadically. The ARC had a team on site with a locking mechanism at all times, and nothing had come through since the dodo that had killed Tom. That was fine with Connor; he didn't want anything to come through.

He greeted the team, grinning easily. "Just came to check your locking mechanism," he told them. "We're doing some upgrades, I wanna make sure it's ready."

"Go ahead," he was told, and easy as that, he was ignored again. He'd been counting on that, of course; the soldiers never paid much attention to the techies.

He kept one eye on his watch, installed a one-use-only timer and then he poked uselessly at the mechanism. He was coming up on the hour he'd asked for, and he knew his new team leader well enough to know he'd call at exactly sixty five minutes.

Then the Anomaly opened, and Connor dropped his tools, hit the delay he'd just installed and lunged for it. The locking mechanism locked it behind him, and he crowed in triumph. No one was coming through there until the next time it opened, which wouldn't be for almost a week. He'd be long gone by then.

He was very careful about his route. Helen had mapped hundreds of Anomalies, but he knew exactly where and when he needed to be and he stuck to it. He was almost surprised when he stepped through the last one and found himself on a cliff, watching Hesperonis squawk.

Nick was walking back into the sea; Helen was standing on the beach, watching him go. Connor gave himself exactly three seconds to stare at Nick before scrambling down towards her.

Helen whirled at the sound, drawing a knife from somewhere. Connor raised his hands, pulling off his backpack and slinging it to one side, out of his reach.

Helen relaxed fractionally, watching him. "You're Nick's boy. What are you doing here?"

"I'm not Nick's anything. Nick's dead."

"Is he?" She didn't seem too surprised. "Where did you come from, then?"

"Four years ahead of him." He jerked his head towards the beach.

"Why?"

"I need – something changed. Something went wrong. I need you to tell me how to fix it."

"What makes you think I'll do that?"

Connor glanced at his watch. "In a few minutes, soldiers are gonna come, sent by Lester to capture you. Nick didn't know, but – " He shrugged. "Isn't the last time. I can help you."

"You'll mess up the timeline."

"The timeline is _wrong_. I can't fix it on my own. I need you." He glanced out at the sea; bubbles were starting to rise. Turning, he scooped up his backpack and started back up the cliff. "I'll be here when you get back."

"I could turn you in," she called from behind him.

"No, I don't think you could."

He was out of sight before the soldiers surfaced, but he could hear them. Helen fought like a madwoman, but she didn't give him up, and no one thought to look around. Who else would be here, after all?

He was dozing in the sun the next afternoon when someone stepped into his light. Without opening his eyes, he asked, "Convinced?"

"Did I kill Nick?"

"Yeah."

She didn't speak for a moment; when he opened his eyes she was nodding, gaze far away. "I thought so. He destroys the world, you know."

"He doesn't. I've been to the future, after he died. If it had been him it would have changed."

She sat down, watching him. "You're still his boy. You can't do what's necessary."

"I spent a year in the Cretaceous killing for my life," he said evenly. "I betrayed the ARC to find you. I'll do anything to get my home back."

"I see." She nodded sharply. "Well then. Let's get started."


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter Two

"The problem is," Helen said one afternoon, "we don't know exactly where the ripple started."

They were in the Cretaceous, watching his younger self attempt to hunt. It was early in That Year, judging by the slight stiffness in his movements and the state of his beard, but Connor didn't know exactly when. He wasn't even sure how long he'd been with Helen; they'd jumped timezones and seasons and day/night divides so often his body had simply stopped trying to compensate.

"I don't understand why we can't just send them home. You've got the remote, we could do it easy."

Below them, the boy was so absorbed in studying a plant he completely missed the two Bagaceratops running past behind him, and Connor winced. How did he even survive to make it home?

"We could do that," Helen agreed. "But you've already been here a while. We need to prevent you coming here at all."

"Well, then don't get captured by Christine's man."

She considered him for a moment. "Alright. Let's try that."

They waited long enough for the changes to take effect. Connor still didn't understand that; he thought once they changed something the effects should be instantaneous, but Helen said no. Some changes were reabsorbed by the timestream - if they killed Hitler, Nazi Germany would rise under someone else - and sometimes it took a little while for the effects to ripple through.

When she thought it was ready Helen took him to the Permian Anomaly. "Don't be too long," she warned him. "I won't wait for you."

"No, I don't suppose you will," he agreed, stepping through.

* * *

><p>The two soldiers on duty snap to when he steps out. Connor raises his hands, waiting for them to recognise him, but they don't calm. If anything, they're getting louder and more demanding.<p>

"Alright, guys, it's just me," he protests. They have to know who he is; he and Helen haven't done anything that could affect his inclusion in the Project.

One of the soldiers grabs his shoulder, shoving him to the ground. Connor goes, too startled to resist, and then he's being straddled and his wrists are being cuffed far too tightly. He struggles, more out of shock than any belief he can escape, and gets a cuff to the head that leaves him seeing stars.

The soldiers hold a quick, urgent conversation over his head, finally hauling him to his feet. Connor sags heavily, waiting for one of their grips to loosen.

They drag him to a nearby Jeep. One of them, the one on Connor's left, lets go of him to open the doors; Connor plants his feet, shoving against the other with all his strength. He succeeds in tearing loose, but the man is between him and the Anomaly and he has to backpedal.

It's a step too far; the other soldier is on him, driving the barrel of his gun into Connor's stomach. His head meets the second guard's knee on the way down and blackness rushes in.

* * *

><p>He wakes up as they yank him out of the Jeep in the ARC's yard. His ribs protest as he draws a breath, his wrists and shoulders ache and his head is pounding. He isn't bleeding, though, and he can tell from the feel his ribs aren't broken or even cracked. That's an improvement over a lot of missions.<p>

The soldiers hurry him inside, almost yanking him off his feet in their hurry. Connor keeps up, just about. The corridors are all but empty, and the couple of people he sees are inevitably soldiers. They all give him wide berths, as though he has something contagious.

They drag him into the operations room. One of them kicks the back of his leg and he crashes to his knees, biting back a yell of pain.

"Mr Temple."

Oh..._blast_. He sits back on his heels, keeping his face as still as possible.

Christine Johnson, dressed as always to kill, sashays towards him. Connor only glances at her before turning to look around the room. He recognises only one of the thoroughly cowed-looking tech staff, and none of the soldiers.

"Welcome home," Christine says, coming to a halt a couple of feet in front of him.

Connor ignores her, craning back as far as he can. He isn't sure – this is the first ARC, and the office is above him and at a terrible angle – but he thinks he can see Sarah, watching with one hand pressed against her mouth.

No sign of Becker. No sign of Danny. No sign of Lester.

No sign of _Abby_.

The guard on his left hits him and he turns his attention back to Christine.

"How nice of you to join us," she says mildly. "Where is the Artefact?"

"The what?" he says, genuinely surprised. He hasn't thought about the Artefact, except to bemoan its loss, since Helen smashed it. "Oh, that."

"The _Artefact_, Mr Temple. You do realise I can have you tried for treason?"

"That won't get you anything, will it?"

She sighs, overly patient. "And your little girlfriend?"

Panic seizes him for a moment, and he almost doesn't hear her continue, "Where is she? Off cavorting somewhere with Quinn, I suppose."

Connor shrugs, forcibly calming himself down, but he knows she's seen his reaction. Her eyes narrow, studying him intently.

"You don't know where she is, do you."

He shakes his head. It's true enough; he has no idea where this world's Abby might be.

"And the Artefact?"

"Destroyed."

"You're lying," she breathes. "Dear Professor Cutter's last bequest? You'd never destroy it."

"I didn't. But it is destroyed. You don't get to speak Cutter's name."

"Oh, am I disrespecting your dead mentor? How careless of me. Why, it's almost like spitting on his legacy..."

She steps closer, catching his hair to yank his head back. Connor goes with the move, sweeping one leg around to knock her off her feet.

He can't do any real damage, tied as he is, but her screams are pretty satisfying.

Connor looks up as he's dragged away. Sarah has both hands pressed against the glass, watching him. He smiles, deliberately, and she returns the smile a little shakily.

The cell is dark, cold, and boring. There was a lot more kicking and punching before he'd been thrown in here, but they haven't broken anything except maybe a finger. Connor thinks maybe that's a bad sign, if they're being careful to keep him healthy.

But he remembers running on a broken ankle to escape a Raptor. Christine's going to be surprised if she tries to break him.

He occupies himself by mentally reciting the code for his database. It's familiar enough to be comforting, and it's been just long enough since he played with it that he needs to concentrate on it, which of course is the point.

The lights flare up and he lifts a hand to his eyes. The door to the cell opens, someone steps in, and the door closes. Connor doesn't move, waiting for the lights to dim again or his eyes to adjust.

Sarah is watching him when he finally looks up. She's standing with her back to the door, pressed against it.

"Morning," he says softly.

"_Connor_." She drops to her knees beside him, touching his face lightly. "What's...what are you _doing_ here?"

"Hanging around. What's happened, Sarah?"

"Why aren't you with the others? What happened to the plan?"

"I don't know."

She tilts his head gently, studying the bruise rising over his ear. "That looks nasty."

"It's fine, it doesn't matter. Sarah..." He catches her hands, tugging her around in front of him. "What's going on?"

"What do you mean?"

He grimaces, letting go of her hands and letting his head rest against the wall. "Do you remember...we told you about Nick, about Claudia and Jenny, right?"

"Yes," she says warily. "I don't really understand it, but you told me about it."

"None of us understood it, that isn't important." He waves it away. "I'm not who you think I am."

"You're a different Connor," she realises. "Not our...where did you come from?"

"Through the Forest of Dean – we were testing something out, and I left from my reality and came back to this one. What's happening? Johnson's dead in my world."

Sarah winced, glancing at the door. "She won't like that," she murmurs. "When did that happen?"

"Um..." He tries to remember the date. "About a month after Jenny left," he says finally. "Where is she?"

"Jenny's fine, Johnson can't touch her. Too high up in Whitehall. She can't do anything for us, but she's fine."

"Good," he murmurs. "Look, I think the split point is that mission we took into the future, to rescue Jack. Did that happen here?"

"Yes. A week or so after that Lester was dismissed and reassigned to some paper-pushing job, and Christine was appointed in his place. You three ran with the Artefact – Becker got a warning to you – but he couldn't get to me."

"Where's he?"

She shakes her head. "I don't know. I haven't seen him since then – Captain Wilder took him away somewhere. Christine doesn't let me leave. She thinks you – Connor and the others – will come back for me, and she'll be able to get the Artefact."

"She hasn't hurt you?"

"No. She...no. Connor, I don't think she's sane."

Connor laughs softly. "Yeah, we've known that for a while."

"What happened to her in your time?"

"Helen Cutter fed her to a Future Predator."

Sarah winces. "Sounds like Helen. Where is my Connor?"

"I dunno. I think he's gone. We wondered about that with Nick, but we never really figured it out."

"He's just...gone? What will the others think?"

Connor shrugs helplessly. "Sarah, I really don't know. We never came up with any answers." He glances at the door. "Whatever she asks me, I can't tell her – I don't know anything about this timeline. I can't answer anything."

"There's no one to come after you?"

"No. They're gone, now."

It hits him for the first time, then. Even if he changes his mind now, there's no way for him to go home. He's trapped in this world.

Sarah pretends not to see him wipe at his face, studying the wall over his shoulder until he gets back in control. "Did they hurt you?" she asks finally, touching his cheek again.

"Nah. I've had worse."

She nods. "So. Tell me about your future."

They talk for a while. Sarah shifts to sit next to him, pressed against him from shoulder to hip. Mostly Connor makes stuff up; he doesn't want to tell Sarah about her own fate, Matt and Jess's existence, or the PPP. He knows the cells are wired, after all, and there's no way Christine is stupid enough to put them together and then not listen in. But he knows enough about prehistory to spin convincing stories – or, at least, Sarah doesn't call him on it, just listens and nods and laughs in the right places.

The lights flare up again. Sarah presses her head into his shoulder, so she doesn't see the door opening or the woman standing there. She feels Connor tense up, though.

"Time to go," the newcomer orders briskly.

"It didn't work," Connor says, rising to his feet. Sarah scrambles up with him, completely bewildered.

"I know it didn't work, that's why I'm here. We really can't hang around, Connor."

"Connor, that's Helen Cutter," Sarah protests. "What's going on?"

"I can't explain right now, Sarah, just come with us."

"Uh uh," Helen says. "She isn't coming."

"What? Helen..."

"There's nowhere for her to go. You know that."

"She's _alive_."

"Here. Not where we're going. Leave her and let's go."

Connor stares at Sarah, paralysed. "I can't..."

"Yes, you can, just move!" Helen snatches at his collar, hauling him out into the corridor. Sarah stumbles after them, but Helen locks the door before she can get through. "Not you, sweetheart."

"Helen," Connor protests. "Christine'll kill her if we leave her here."

"Soon as we get back, there won't be a here here. You know that. Now come on, or our ride's going to leave without us."

"Connor?" Sarah calls, high and frightened. "Connor, what are you doing?"

"I'm fixing it," he breathes. "I'm making it right. I'll make it right for you, Sarah, I promise." He backs away, watching until he can't see her anymore, and then turns and follows Helen out of there.

* * *

><p>Helen brought them to just after she'd disappeared the first time. Wisely, she took him to an isolated cabin, left money on the table and vanished, promising to be back 'later'.<p>

Connor spent the time writing down everything he could remember, both from his own timeline and from the one they'd just left, and recreating what he could remember of Cutter's probability Matrix and the Artefact's display. When Helen finally came back, almost a week later, he was staring at the Matrix he'd formed.

"Looks good," she said, dropping her backpack by the door and coming to eye it. "Are you sure you only saw the Artefact working once?"

"Nick was building a model." He didn't look at her.

"He always was intuitive." She tweaked one of the strands. "Ready to try again?"

"We left Sarah to die."

"You're trying to save Sarah. Save all of them. You know that." She considered him. "I knew you couldn't handle it. Where do you want me to drop you off?"

"What?"

"You could stay here, I suppose, but you'd have to be very careful not to meet anyone you know. Or you can go back to your own time. I can get you there before you ran off, no one needs to know anything..."

"I can do it." He pushed to his feet, taking a step away from the table. "I can do it, Helen. What's next?"

"Next?" She smiled. "Next we kill my husband."


End file.
